Physics in Your World

This is Surtsey, a volcanic island formed in 1963 off the southern coast of Iceland, which lies astride the the mid-Atlantic Ridge (the boundary of the North American and the Eurasian tectonic plates). To learn more about this image, see The Island of Surtsey, Iceland. To see how the plate boundary runs right through Iceland, go to the Smithsonian Institution's This Dynamic Planet, and zoom in on Iceland (it's in the upper right corner of the map).

From Physics Research

This image shows the age of the ocean bottom near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge--you can find Iceland off the east coast of Greenland (and this ridge runs right through Iceland). Red indicates rock about 20 million years old; to see all of Earth's surface, and the whole color key, check out Crustal Age of the Ocean Floor. To understand how the theory of plate tectonics explains the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, visit This Dynamic Earth: Developing the Theory.